scientific

PART III: “Got your mind in submission. Got your life on the line”

March 19, 2018 — leslie dean brown

Illustration by leslie dean brown. © 2019. All rights reserved.

Once inside, I felt frustrated and angry initally, especially with Mister PorkFace for putting me here.

I began pacing around the main room. They still hadn’t given me my phone back, let alone my laptop. For now, the only thing I was permitted to have were my clothes. I felt like they were punishing me.

Not knowing where to go or what to do, they showed me to my room. Yes, I had my own private quarters. I sat on the bed and looked around.

Everything, what little there was, was modern and lamintated. No real wood, no natural materials, fully synthetic surfaces. It all looked very sterile. That’s the only way I can describe it. Minimalist, solid and sterile.

There were bedside tables, but there was no drawers in them – they were just like these hollow, extruded square shapes, with a strong base for support, that’s literally all there was to them.

The bed was positioned perpendicular to the wall, like in a traditional hospital. But 90° opposite to what you might expect in a veritable cell, given the level of security elsewhere. Unlike in a hospital, this bed was rock solid, like it had been built into the very foundation of the building. It wouldn’t budge. Come to think of it, it looked a bit like a bed you might find in an surgical operating theatre. Even those appear to be more mobile I would think. More like the bed Frankenstein woke up on. Yes, exactly like that. Like it could support a 500lb man without any problem, but way too narrow to accomodate someone of that stature in any case. All that were missing were the straps going across it to physically restrain someone.

Rooms were very sparse indeed: just the bed dominating the centre portion of the room, the aforementioned bedside table, a type of wall desk with some open shelves adjoined to it (with no cupboard doors obviously).

Everything was a continual reminder, though, as to why we were there. Everything was specifially designed to minimise risk of either self harm or harm towards others. And I mean everything. There were no protruding door knobs or handles anywhere in sight. So people couldn’t injure themselves. And the reason I’m decribing this place in such detail in the first place, is because photographs were strictly prohibited (more on that below).

Interestingly, there was a separate ensuite in one corner of the room, with it’s own door. Despite that second door and its association with privacy, I could never have a shower longer than about 5 minutes before one of the staff knocked outside the main one to confirm my presence and ask whether I was alright.

Inside, the taps were designed very differently to what you might expect. It appears their design criteria included the inability to significantly harm oneself on them, or harm someone else on them (and that was definitely prioritised over their ease of use). As such, they were much harder to turn on and off than normal taps. I can’t remember now but I’m pretty sure that both the sink basin and toilet were not made of traditional ceramic materials as you’ve seen them in bathrooms elsewhere, such as stoneware, earthware or porcelain –but rather– solid metal. If you saw the design brief for this institution, I bet it probably would have read “f r a g i l e / b r i t t l e m a t e r i a l s b a n n e d u n d e r a l l c i r c u m s t a n c e s !”.

I’m pretty sure the mirrors weren’t made of glass, either. It was difficult to tell, because they were bolted to the walls with loads of torx screws. Nothing was left simply “hanging freely” on the walls. Nothing! Everything was either bolted down or else removed, so that people couldn’t throw anything of substantial weight around. It all gave the impression that they’d “been there, done that” with respect to any sort of problem breakages.

Signs on the wall stated that the rooms were “electrically protected”, whatever that means. I presume it means we couldn’t electrocute ourselves even if we wanted to. They didn’t trust any one of us. Not with anything.

Every night, the night shift staff would do their rounds and check on us to see how we were doing. Every hour they would come. All through the night; they’d shine a torch light into our rooms, right in our face. To make sure we were still alive, basically. Slightly annoying when you are trying to get some sleep in strange surroundings. Still, in many ways, it felt comforting, to be looked upon like that.

I thought of many ways I could potentially kill myself in there, as a last resort. Like hanging myself with the belt I was wearing, electrocution, or cutting myself by dismantling the two-blade disposable razor they had loaned me. All of the ‘obvious’ ways. And I even thought one not so obvious one: swallowing excessive quantities of plain old ordinary everyday drinking water. They hadn’t thought of that, had they? To restrict the flow of running water. Yes, if you are ‘clever’, there are always ways one can find to try to kill one’s self.

I’m not sure on what day it was, but on one of the days during my stay I had another, longer meeting with a different psychiatrist –via teleconference– with two others present beside me. This particular psychiatrist (let’s call him #2) had at least understood where I was coming from and why I was so depressed. I had told him about recent changes in my life and my concerns for the future of this world.

I asked them rhetorically: “why is it okay for this civilisation, this society, to act suicidally and yet I cannot even be permitted to have suicidal thoughts?”. There was no immediate answer. One of the Doctors nodded in agreement while continuing tapping away at his laptop. He didn’t look up. He just nodded and typed simultaneously.

And I told them all about why I was worried. Because here I had an audience. Even if it was only three people. They were three important people. Because if you know anything about this blog, then you already know that I am very concerned about the state of the environment. About what I would describe as a continual attack on nature — as if we were at war and it were the enemy. About what scientists are now describing as “the 6th great extinction”. About ‘development’ really being an oxymoron. And that we’re not separate from nature. That we rely on nature. That we humans still rely on nature. That we are still very much a part of nature. And that biodiversity inspires people — creative people. That much research, some of the best research, yes even with synthetic materials, relies on biodiversity. Biomimicry. That biodiversity provides eco system services. That it’s our life-support system. That ultimately we need biodiversity. That what we are doing, I believe, is not sustainable in the long term. That something has to change. Because civilisations rise and then sooner or later they fall.

I was hoping that it would all be written down and recorded somewhere. That at least this one root cause of my depression would filter through all of our government bureaucracy — for someone even more important to read and evaluate at a later date. I told them who I was and that I even had a Doctorate in Materials Science. As if that somehow mattered more. I wanted them to know that this one scientist at the very least had reached his own personal limit. That maybe they would be seeing more and more of us. And then maybe something might be done about it.

The other nurse pulled me aside later on and said that he agreed with me about what I was saying. Number 2 had reccommended that I be released “either today or tomorrow” — but I found out later that he was overruled by number 1, the porky one.

Another day went by. I started getting into an argument with a totally *ignorant* security guard inside the psych ward about the state of the world. About how the natural environment was in decline. He was in classic state of denial and so I threw some hard facts at him. I wonder how long people can continue to fool themselves like this? I mean, surely some environmental news must penetrate through to them? Of course, all the patients know what is going on. And maybe that should tell you something.

Anway, I asked him how many scientists he had talked to. “None”, he said. “Well you’re talking to one now!”, I retorted. Was it arrogant? Yes. Yes it was. Very! But you have to remember I was literally at my breaking point. And I have become tired of being diplomatic and politically correct all the time. There’s simply too much at stake. I feel like I have my own “duty of care” so to speak.

Then he finally said: “Well what do you want me to do?!” (with a definite attitude, like it was a rhetorical question). ¹

My friend looked (glared) at me as if to say “Shut up! Don’t esculate the situation further! Think about where you are!!”. He was right. After that, I decided to totally back off because that is not the best place to lose one’s temper (if they have to, they’ll stick a needle in your butt to tranquilise you as they escort you to the so called “high dependency” ward). You can’t get angry because you are constantly being monitored. Well you can– but then there are instant repercussions for that sort of unruly behaviour. They don’t tolerate it.

I also thought about piling up some chairs and scaling the 20ft outside walls. But I was told by other patients that it only makes things worse and that’s when they would call the cops and/or drag me into what is called the “high dependency” section of the ward. If you did manage to escape they would only come looking for you at home. And so what’s the point?

[continued to part IV]

No, you don’t need a doctor
No one else can heal your soul
Got your mind in submission
Got your life on the line
But nobody pulled the trigger
They just stepped aside
They’ll be down by the water
While you watch ’em wavin’ goodbye

Axl Rose, Coma GNR.

PARTII: “They’ll be waitin’ for an answer but you know nobody’s home.”

March 18, 2018 — leslie dean brown

Believe it or not, but I just spent all of last week in the loony bin… here’s how it happened:

[continued from part I]

Yes I was admitted to hospital over a week ago. First to the local emergency department. And then later transferred 1.5 hours away to the nearest mental health unit (aka “psychiatric ward” aka “lunatic asylum”). This is how my journey began.

I decided to opt for the back seat because I didn’t want to talk to anyone. The nurse sat beside me with the driver in front. I was very quiet, looking out the window at the world go by. At about the half way mark, I started to get nervous, because they were mentioning this thing called a “psych ward” with increasing frequency. Previously they had really only told me that I was being transferred to another larger hospital.

The nerves morphed into nausea. I told them I felt sick. I asked for more air. They gave me a vomit bag. The driver pulled over and not long afterwards, I vomited. Ugh. It must have been the blood test on the empty stomach that did it (and sitting in the back seat). They offered for me to move to the front seat. Pretty soon, I started to feel much better and started talking to the driver. We both agreed: this world is in trouble. And if you’ve been reading this blog, you know why. The nurse asked me: “Is all this why you’re depressed?”. “Partially”, I replied. “Partially.”

I was fine for the rest of the trip, but I was disoriented. We arrived at this weird-looking building with tall, thin vertical windows with corrugated iron cladding. I’d never been here before. I remember being escorted through several locked security doors. The sun was high up in the sky and I couldn’t tell which way was North.

We ended up in a little interrogation room and they told me to take a seat. There was a single chair with armrests in the center of the room. I sat, wondering whether or not to get myself comfortable by using the backrest. It was all a bit odd. They kept asking me if I knew why I was here. I knew. Truthfully? I don’t even remember what else they asked me. Probably my name and date of birth.

Oh I remember! There was a multiple choice questionnaire, that’s right. A K10 anxiety and depression checklist, not the usual Depression and Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) scoring template I was already familiar with.

“About how often do you feel depressed?”, the nurse asked with a cheery voice. “All of the time”, I responded bleakly. She filled in the little circle at the far right end of the same row. “About how often did you feel that everything was an effort?”, the nurse asked. “All of the time”, by now almost monotone. She filled in another little circle at the far right end. The month prior, my depression scores were listed as ‘severe’. They literally could not get any worse.

I remember being told to remove all of my belongings except the clothes I was wearing (for some reason I got to keep my wallet although they did ask for that too). Without my phone and car keys weighing down both pockets I felt almost naked. I was searched with a metal detector.

Then I was escorted through another set of double doors commonly seen throughout hospitals. I’m pretty sure they had a metal grid inside the window portion, for added security. My purple Crumpler^® messenger bag sat on the floor on the other side of that doorway. I think here is when the shock really started to set in because –unlike at an airport security checkpoint– I was not immediately reunited with my possessions.

Once inside, they sat me down at a round table which was bolted to the floor with sturdy metal L-shaped brackets. I was presented with a piece of paper to sign. I began to read through the document, which was printed on a single sheet of A4-sized paper. It was the terms and conditions regarding my voluntary admission.

I think it all seemed pretty routine for the nurse. As for me, I was still in a state of complete shock. I hesitated for a moment. There were about eight people in the room. Lord knows what was wrong with them. Another patient wandered over in my direction, and, keeping his distance, said to me in rather a loud voice something along the lines of: “Can I give you some advice? don’t stay here if you don’t have to be here, everyone wants to get out of here if you can leave just go get out of here don’t sign anything!”, like it was one drawn out sentence with no pauses in between. Hmmm. Not a good sign.

I glanced around this room and outside towards the 20-foot security walls and the abundance of dull grey cement and concrete (yes I know the difference between the two by the way). It all all looked very sterile. Even the raggedy-looking tomato plant appeared to be depressed. To me, it all looked (and felt) like a virtual prison. That’s probably because that’s exactly what it was!

I also noticed that there was a complete lack of art on the walls –and taking this complete stranger’s sage advice– decided not to sign. It all seemed like a very depressing environment to be in and I just didn’t want to be there. “Fuck ’em!”, I thought. “I’m not staying here a moment longer than I have to”, I resigned. Besides, I held this belief: “Shit, this is really going to interfere with my work” somewhere in the back of my mind.

“I can’t sign that.”, I said. Out loud. “I won’t sign.”, I said again, emphatically. Now I don’t know if everyone realises this, but there’s a whole world of difference between the two words “can’t” and “won’t” (for some people at least). And I thought that saying both of them strongly enough, sequentially, that they would somehow synergistically add up and give me a tiny bit more clout than either word used alone would. Nope.

“I don’t need to be here”, I thought, looking around the room one last time, utterly convinced of my decision-making abilities. “What happens if I don’t sign?”, I then asked (inquisitively and a admittedly a little belatedly). “If you don’t sign we can keep you for up to two hours until you see a doctor who can release you”, I was promptly told. “Well two hours is better than two weeks”, I muttered to myself, and stubbornly refused to cooperate with them any further.

I don’t exactly remember what happened next –whether I was standing or sitting or where– but it wasn’t long before I was ushered by one of the nurses into another small private room. A large man with a somewhat porky face and dark complexion walked in. I started answering a whole bunch of his questions. And then I realised I didn’t even know who the fuck I was talking to. I couldn’t even remember his name. “Are you a psychiatrist?” I asked, once again belatedly. “Yes I’m a type of psychiatrist” he said with a charming English accent. And I was like “okay… fine… good… I’ll be able to prove to this bloke of my sanity… finally I get to talk to someone intelligent!”.

Please keep in mind that I just wanted to leave this place and go straight back home to pat my dog. Because it’s the little things like that that make me feel ‘happy’. Access to all of those little creature comforts we tend to take for granted. Plus my freedom. And I thought that if they made me stay –if they forced me to– there was a fairly strong chance I’d either throw a temper tantrum, try to escape or worse yet kill myself. There was just no way this was going to work for me. Because I was already at rock bottom. “I can’t stay here two weeks.”, I said, while shaking my head resoundingly as I often do for added effect.

Once again, I was asked whether I knew why I was here. Maybe the real problem was that I was too honest? Yesterday, I had visited my local community health centre. To try and get some more help. Because I felt that the monthly visits to my psychologist were not enough. They were helping –sure– but only very slowly (cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT as it is known is inherently a slow process). So I had told the occupational therapist my latest thoughts. I had told her everything. That’s why I was here in the first place… of course I knew why I was here.

He told me that they were worried about me and spun the old “duty of care” argument. Uh oh… I could see where this was going…

Because although I didn’t wanted to kill myself right there and then in that exact moment, I had dwelled on it for some time. I hadn’t completely ruled out the possibility of doing something like that in the future. If my situation were to get worse for example, as a kind of an escape route from my relentless suffering. Like if my mum or my sister died, or some other fairly drastic and unexpected life event. For example if my dog was ever taken away from me — simply being with her was one of life’s few remaining pleasures.

Quite frankly, yes, I was almost over it. I almost could not take any more. Almost. I had had around forty hours of cognitive behaviorial therapy in the last three years alone. My change of career was about ten times harder than I ever imagined. I didn’t feel very successful. I had no motivation left. My sleeping patterns were a complete mess. I felt hopeless. Useless. I had basically had enough of it. It might be the least desirable option, but it’s still an option. My secret option. And I had briefly checked out on that option too.

So I don’t even remember if he asked me this next question before or after the previous paragraphs, but he said it in a strange, roundabout way. Instead of asking whether I had ever had (or currently had) suicidal thoughts or asking me directly whether I wanted to kill myself, he posed the question in the conditional, subjunctive form, like this:

“If I were to ask you whether you wanted to kill yourself, what would you then say to me?”.

Now that’s a strange way of asking somebody something, isn’t it? Is this some kind of pyschiatrists’ trick? Since I’m a rather fond of learning languages, I’ve since learned that this is called “the subjunctive mood”. Right. Looking back on it now, yes, it’s rather clever now that I think about it. All of a sudden this became a hypothetical scenario. Yes hypothetically I might want to kill myself in the future if the situation got worse. And then there was an awkwardly long pause on my behalf. Too long. Like nearly this long:

He had caught me off guard. Dammit! Yes I felt about as guilty as Jan Ullrich when asked about doping. But I didn’t smile or laugh because it wasn’t funny. Nothing was. “It’s too soon”, I remember thinking. “I’m not that suicidal. Not right now. Not yet. I’m not ready to do it yet. I’m only partially suicidal.”

Lots of things were going through my mind, but I still hadn’t answered yet! I’m not one to tell lies. Should I answer “maybe”? “Not right now”? “Sometimes”? None of these are good answers. I realise now that when you’re in this kind of predicament, anything other than a straight up ‘no’ is not the right answer. In the end I decided upon saying “how can I answer that question?”. I couldn’t think of what else to say. But the alternative was to sit there and say nothing for even longer. My lame response was a partial admission of my suicidal tendencies.

It was around this point in the conversation that he said “we can keep you here as an involuntary patient” and “I don’t take this decision lightly” (or whatever way he said it). I was astonished. “You want to put a suicidally depressed patient into a more depressing environment?!”, I remarked.

I felt like a tiny insect who had flown unwittingly into the outer perimeter of a very large spiderweb. The web had been spun well before I had entered the room that day. And the juicy big orb spider was coming to get me. It was a trap and suddenly I was stuck! Fuck!

You see, up until then, I had assumed that if I voluntarily walked into one of these centres, that I could voluntarily walk straight out again. Wrong!

I honestly wish I had a fucking tape recorder with me, but I didn’t have one so apologies if this next section isn’t verbatim and/or with the correct sequence of events. He looked me right in the eye (or I looked him right in the eye if you prefer) and he said: “The state wants to keep you alive” (or the equivalent, the only words I really remember were ‘state’, ‘you’ and ‘alive’). Or maybe he said “The state has a duty to keep you alive”, or something else very much like that — sorry, I just I don’t bloody remember.

“The risk to you is less in here than out there” the man said. To which I promptly replied: “but you haven’t seen my home environment, so how can you make that judgement? YOU don’t know!“. Then he repeated himself and I repeated myself. A few times actually. I was getting anxious. And then I said “well we’re just going ’round in circles”. The nurse nodded in agreement. The meeting was basically over at that point. There was to be no further discussion or compromise.

I had been classified as either a “mentally ill patient” or a “mentally disordered patient” (I’m still not sure which one). Basically, I was sick. How had I let things get this far? I don’t know. Depression is the disease of the 21st century; it wears an invisibility cloak and it can creep up behind you while you least expect it. Somewhere along the line, I had been gradually losing hope about my future.

By now it was dawning on me that there was not going to be an exit from here any time soon. Whether I signed that silly admission form or not, they were not going to release me back into the big bad world for a while. That was it. I was to be admitted as an involuntary patient at a psychiatric hospital ward.

[continued to part III]

They’ll be callin’ in the morning
They’ll be hanging on the phone
They’ll be waitin’ for an answer
But you know nobody’s home
And when the bells stop ringing
It was nobody’s fault but your own

Axl Rose, Coma GNR.

Camouflage material inspired by octopus and cuttlefish

February 14, 2017 — leslie dean brown

Full text, scientific paper.

Why do I seem to ‘hate’ the rich?

January 10, 2017 — leslie dean brown

Ecologists have always said that one of the greatest threats to our natural environment is habitat destruction.

One of the main gripes I have against ultra-high net worth individuals is that they cause the most environmental degradation of all groups on this planet and they don’t tend to offset this with direct contributions back towards the natural environment.

I think the following advertisement nicely sums up the ‘attitude’ that some rich people seem to have:

So the reasons that I question ‘rich’ people are:

Because rich people are usually responsible for more environmental destruction than poor people, they have brought about more degradative environmental changes.
Because rich people are primarily motivated by money, they are more likely can be bought out (corrupted) with even more money.
When the rich do give, they tend to give back to humanitarian causes. And if they do give, is it really enough of an offset? Not always, but often. One exception I have found is Mohammad Bin Zayeed; the man started his own species conservation fund. Another is the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation.

Why is this a problem? Well, because the only physical thing (that I know of) that stops our Earth from becoming uninhabitable is all the life forms found on Earth that stabilise everything for us. The biosphere.

Any biologist will tell you that, realistically, what is going to happen is that as nature continues to “bite back” with ever-greater intensity, productivity (and therefore profit) is just going to go down eventually… it has to. It must! Less biodiversity is ultimately going to lead to less profit. Do all investors and directors of the board actually realise that? Do they realise that infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is a physical impossibility?

So not only will it be harder to make profit feeling the increasing effects of climate change (like with the recent New York blizzard for example), but more damage will be likely to occur due to storms and other weather extremes. I’ll say it again. Less biodiversity is ultimately going to lead to less profit. Why do I say that? Why do I think it will lead to less profit? Read on..

So we know that there are other planets out there. We’re not living on the only planet. Planetary geologists like to compare the planet Earth with Mars and Venus. All of these three planets are very similar in size and yet they have distinctly different environments. These other planets show us what is possible. As of today, both of these other two planets are essentially uninhabitable. Yes we could put a person on Mars and they might survive for a while inside an artificially heated, pressurised and oxygenated atmosphere, but would they be self sufficient? The answer is no definitely not at first.

As is, nothing grows there on Mars. Nothing. Not even the most basic life form. So that means no food. Worse, there is no water. And worse still is that there is no oxygen.

What about Venus then? Well again, even if we could get there, even if we could live there, most businesses would be more viable back here on planet Earth than on the planet Venus. Wouldn’t they? Maybe the exception would be companies that need to utlise lots of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid.

Let’s take sulfuric acid. Let’s go with that example. Sure its useful to us here on Earth for all sorts of industrial purposes. So say we started to mine sulfuric acid on the planet venus. Even then we’d first need to get robots over there, wouldn’t we? And then we’d need to get the sulfuric acid back here on Earth.

But what are the transportations costs? How much fuel is burned? And doesn’t burning all that rocket fuel fuck up the Earth’s atmosphere even further? Well yes it does. What about if the Venus mining corporation had to pay carbon credits on all the tonnes of rocket fuel? And once there, how would the rocket get back to Earth? It would have to take enough fuel and liquid oxygen for the entire return journey. Because there is no oxygen on Venus. So now you tell me. Would it be a profitable enterprise?

Think about this (and keep in mind that I am one of the few scientists who have also set up my own business, so I do know a thing or two about profitability). Well in my professional scientific and business opinion, if you wanted to set up a business on the planet Mars, it would be more economically viable to locate your business at the South pole instead.

Why do I even bring this up here? What’s this got to do with rich people? What’s this got to do with money? Well, I don’t know of any businesses that are viable on either the planet Mars or Venus. Do you? Not even the most basic lemonade stand would work on the planet Mars or Venus. Would it? And rich people tend to forget this fact.

The newest space mission is estimated to cost $1.5 trillion dollars. That is a lot of investment money for anyone. So where is the ‘ROI’ going to come from that lot? Here’s what I wrote in another post of mine:

To me, it’s the most expensive & inefficient way to create the most boring food menu imagineable. Really. I mean, just think about how much those first few thousand lettuce leaves are going to cost! A billion dollars per lettuce leaf. That’s really great NASA. Thanks.

You see, if we had to pay for our oxygen supply, our water supply and our food supply down here on Earth like we would have to on Mars, then I’m sure that most businesses on Earth would become bankrupt within a matter of weeks. So economists (and rich people) are forgetting to take nature’s services into account. And when they do, I think they’ll realise that a forest is a very valuable place indeed.

Why I am so concerned about the state of the world.

November 17, 2016 — leslie dean brown

I am worried and very concerned, yes. My background is originally materials science.

From my perspective, the problem is that there is an environmental cost to every single material that you buy — be it gold, cotton, steel, or whatever. People forget that. The economy may benefit from materialism, but the environment certainly doesn’t.

Now, keep in mind that when I did my degree over 15 years ago, the ‘environment’ wasn’t even really discussed in that course. It was all about the properties and structure of materials.

First off, there is a lot of energy required to make materials. So if the country of manufacture uses coal power to generate their electricity, and they are not offsetting those emissions, then whatever physical goods you buy from them is contributing further to climate change.

Why? Because almost all materials either require either energy, heat, or other chemicals (which, in turn, require heat) in order to produce them. That’s a bit of a worry in itself. Because people are generally becoming more materialistic.

So for instance, hunters that shoot animals and think that is a ‘sustainable’ way of life, well I have news for you. If your gun is made of plastic or metal, where does that come from? It all comes from mines. And plastic comes from oil&gas. And your bullets. What are they made from? That too comes from mines. And the gunpowder contains chemicals like sulfur and potassium. And they have to come from somewhere too. And mines don’t last forever…

Currently, the manufacture of every single synthetic material results in carbon emissions somewhere along the line, if only from the energy that is required to create them. I think the correct term is “embodied energy”. [Read more…]